The outpost was not large—smaller even than the space station. There were not many people working inside, either. According to the male employee who had opened the door for them, there had been quite a few more Chinese people lately; there had been even fewer before.
After all, it could not connect to Earth's internet, and there was nothing outside but barren emptiness. The main job here was collecting data from Jupiter and sending it back to Earth. Although the shuttle came every week, personnel could not leave their posts without special circumstances. The work was dull and tedious, and few people were willing to do it.
Through the staff member's introduction, Schiller learned the basics of the outpost.
Callisto was a tidally locked satellite. Its relationship with Jupiter was like that between the Moon and Earth: only one side ever faced Jupiter. That side was equivalent to the near side of the Moon.
The outpost they were currently in was effectively on the far side of the Moon—the side that did not face Jupiter. Schiller was somewhat curious as to why they had not built the outpost on the near side.
But then he considered that Callisto was quite far from Jupiter. Standing on Callisto, Jupiter did not look much larger than the Moon did from Earth.
If the outpost had been built on the near side, employees would see Jupiter rising every day instead of the Sun and Moon. That would create a strong sense of abnormality, perhaps worsening their loneliness and affecting their mental health.
As the third-largest moon in the Solar System, Callisto was roughly 2.6 times the size of the Moon, though still far smaller than Earth. So even with the outpost on the far side, it did not take much time to travel to